


fair is foul and foul is fair

by endquestionmark



Series: one hundred [1]
Category: Luther (TV), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-12
Updated: 2012-03-12
Packaged: 2017-11-01 20:05:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/360717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endquestionmark/pseuds/endquestionmark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Jim Moriarty isn't the only psychopath in London, and he isn't the only psychopath in London who’s obsessed with the one person who could destroy him, and in a drastic break with the laws of physics, similarities attract.  Cross-posted from <a href="http://endquestionmark.tumblr.com/post/19155074765/002-fair-is-foul-and-foul-is-fair">tumblr</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	fair is foul and foul is fair

“You’re wasted in this laboratory,” Jim says to Alice one day, syllables spilling from his lips like bubbles, like fine froth from a dog’s jaws. His words foam up and then vanish, leaving only a vague scent of disease behind. “Think of what we could do together. Haven’t you ever wanted to watch this city burn, darling?”  
  
Alice allows her lips to curl; she does not care for his tone and she cares even less for his words. “This city does more than either of us every could,” she says, voice flat, words clipped. “You know it just as well as I do.”  
  
“Yes,” whines Jim, “but isn’t it so,  _so_  boring? Watching all those people rush about in their stupid, stupid lives. Isn’t it much more fun to step on the ants, pour acid on the anthill, fry them with a magnifying lens?” He licks his lips, reptilian and eager, as though he’s tasting the air, pulling her response out of silence before she can utter it.  
  
“No,” she says, and she can tell by the tilt of his head that she’s disappointed him. “It’s childish. Why should I put myself at risk when I can let them run themselves ragged first?”  
  
“Because it’s dull,” Jim says, glaring at her. “You’re hunting the sick and the wounded and the babies, Alice Morgan, you’re nothing like what you could be, and I’m offering you London in flames on a silver platter. What more do you want? Paris? It’s yours. New York in ashes? Well, we’re a bit late, but-“  
  
“You’re a liability, Mr Moriarty,” Alice says, and he lapses into grudging silence. “You’re addicted to that detective; you’re addicted to him and his pet doctor, and one day they’ll kill you, and then you won’t see the world burn, will you? You’ll be dead, Jim Moriarty, and dead is gone.”  
  
“That’s what you wish, isn’t it,” Jim says to her, eyes narrowed. “That’s what you tell yourself when you wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, dreaming of textbooks and sheafs of notes and your parents, always pushing you, better, better, more, better, and that’s how you calm your pulse, isn’t it? They’re dead because of who and what they made you, and you don’t want to give them  _credit_ for it.”  
  
Jim is wrong, of course; Alice doesn’t wake up in the middle of the night with nightmares. Alice hardly dreams at all, and when she does it is always in flashes of bright, abstract color; a red apple, green grass. She never dreams of people, not even John.  
  
She tells Jim this.  
  
“You made yourself up,” she tells him, “you came from a tiny town in the middle of nowhere in Ireland, and you decided that you wanted to scorch your name into the earth, and you started with your childhood home, and your hospital, and your parents’ retirement home. It’s a wonder they haven’t found you yet.”  
  
“Ooh, very good,” Jim says, clapping sardonically. Alice leans against her lab bench and waits for him to stop.  ”You’re an addict too,” he adds, and then she listens, straining her hearing past the flicker of the fluorescent strips and the hum of the computer. “You’re addicted to John Luther and maybe his puppy too. You’re addicted to the blood on his hands and whatever burns in his eyes - don’t look at me like that, Alice!  Oh, wait, you aren’t, are you? You never look at anyone but _him_  like that. And don’t lie to me, Alice Morgan,  _do not lie to me_ , because I know what you would carry out of a burning house, and would it be yourself? I can burn you, Alice. I can burn you to  _cinders_ and blow you away on the wind.”  
  
“You’re wrong,” Alice says, without thinking about it.  
  
“Am I really?” he says, voice soaring and dipping. “Would you kill a man for him? Or have you already done that? His name written in blood across your heart; do you think I can’t see it? Because I  _can_ ,” he sing-songs. “I can see it  _dripping_.”  
  
“You’re wrong,” says Alice, “because I’m not addicted to him; he’s addicted to me.”  
  
“Would he hold a man’s mouth closed and watch him kick for you?” Jim says, head to the side, curious cat smile curling his lips.  
  
“Yes,” Alice says.  
  
“You’re hooked, baby,” Jim says, smile peeling back into a grin of satisfaction. “You’re caught on each other and you’ll go down together, won’t it be lovely?  Anchor and chain lost in the deeps together.”  
  
“I’ll count the days until you and Mr Holmes go up in flames together,” Alice Morgan says, “and I will toast the happy occasion with a glass of wine and John Luther at my side, and then perhaps London will burn, but you will not hold the matches, and you will be dead and beneath the sod and London will burn the brighter for it.”  
  
“And I will await the happy announcement of your demise for the sake of one DI Luther,” Jim says, raising a hand in mock salute as he saunters towards the door. **  
  
** “You’ll have to survive first,” Alice says, “ _if you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow-_ ”  
  
” _And which will not, speak_ ,” Jim finishes for her. “But Banquo never met either of us, and I am absolutely certain that I am right and that you will be dead before the year is out.”  
  
“And I am never wrong,” says Alice Morgan. “I look forward to it.”  
  
She returns his salute as he dances out.  
  
It is the second day of 2012.


End file.
